Tag Archives: systems biology

On Worm Music

A bit of advice, reader: it is worth getting up early every now and again. Yesterday, some arcane alignment of celestial spheres was achieved, and I found myself awake and dressed at an oddly early hour, with swathes of time before I needed to catch the bus. So, I decided to read up on the News and Features Feed of my academic bankroller, to pass the time and to enrich my connection to the world of Biomedical Somethings. The WTNF often has strange and wonderful information on some of the more left-field things they fund, and I can highly recommend browsing it yourself sometime (perhaps youll learn about a live-action film on sperm, or textiles inspired by mutilation).

One thing of interest that I learned was that a composer named Keith Johnson has just finished a 6-month stint as the resident artist (funded by the Wellcome Trust) in the Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biologyat University College London. Keith had composed various musics inspired by Stephen Nurrish’s work on the effect of serotonin on the brain of nematode worms, and they (the music, not the worms, though they got a look in too) were to be performed yesterday night at the Dana Centre in London. The event was called ‘Music from the Worm Farm’, and promised piano and ensemble music, and talks on composing the music and the science that it was inspired by. I was there faster than you can say ‘Worm Music!’.
Continue reading

On The Digital Embryo and Some Very Cool Videos

ResearchBlogging.org

Reader, I have a bit of a visual treat for you today. A group at the Heidelberg branch of the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) published a paper in Science a few months ago, detailing a full microscopic scan of the first 24 hours in the development of the zebrafish embryo, from a handful of cells to when the first structuring starts to occur. And, in doing so, they produced some startlingly beautiful videos of the first moments of life.
Continue reading